‘Armed struggle is not expected in democracy’

“Such armed struggle is not expected in democracy and any attempt to weaken law and order situation will be dealt with seriously,” she said before leaving Sukna on her way back to Kolkata.

Meanwhile, several leaders of the state women Congress unit on Wednesday joined TMC, accusing the PCC leadership of not giving importance to women in the party.

The statement of Chief Minister has come at a time when Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) chairman Pradip Pradhan, who was also a senior leader of Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM), joined Trinamool Congress. Trinamool Congress’ foothold in the hills has become more strong with Pradhan joining the party while on the other hand Banerjee’s claim of the attempts to create trouble in the hills that would jeopardise the development work have mounted pressure on the GJM leaderships.

Banerjee went to North Bengal on August 24 and held an administrative review meeting of three districts ­­- Malda, North and South Dinajpur – on Tuesday. On Wednesday, in reply to the questions of newsmen in Sukna on the present situation in the hills, she cleared the stand of the state government.

She said: “I want hill to come forward. But despite wishing for something we cannot do many things. The reason being there is GTA. But we are doing as much as work we can do from outside.”

Taking a dig at the Centre once again, Banerjee said: “Sometimes Delhi also extends support. But I am not in favour of armed struggle. I always favour nothing but development. Often, there were attempts to create such problems in the hills. But we must keep in mind that these are not expected in democracy and law will take its own course.”

It may be mentioned that one of the milestones of the Trinamool Congress government is to reinstate peace in the hills after coming to power in 2011 and the people in Darjeeling district have witnessed the will of the present state government to bring a development in the hills.

It had also left an effect on the results of 2016 Assembly elections in which the percentage of vote of Trinamool Congress in Darjeeling district has gone up to 41.22 per cent in the 2016 Assembly elections while it was only 20.52 per cent in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Though the party had not been able to bag any of the five Assembly seats in the district, it had come up to the second position in Siliguri, Darjeeling, Matigara- Naxalbari, Kurseong and Phansidewa Assembly constituencies.

Sources said that the GJM leaderships held a meeting soon after the developments took place on Wednesday.